Podcasts

More people than ever are switching to iPhone, or are seriously considering making the move, and one of the things you'll want to bring with you is any music or audio you've been listening to on your old Android phone. Apple has been providing the best audio frameworks in the industry for years, and as such you'll find tons of great apps that utilize it within the App Store — including Google's! — to make switching your music and audio to a new device incredibly easy. Here's what works best!

I produced a lot of podcasts last year. Probably over 200 shows spanning 300 or more hours. We don't post all of them here at iMore anymore, but for much of the year they did, and they all embody the spirit we try to bring to iMore — that all this technology is by and for people, and it's the people that really matter. Out of all of those shows, I could never pick any favorites. Every time I'd try, I'd be reminded of another, and another, and find myself in an endless loop. So, I figured I'd see which ones appealed to you, our listeners, the most. According to the download numbers, and recognizing that's just one metric, here are our most popular podcasts of 2014.

Vector is a news and analysis show focusing on the biggest stories, hottest trends, and most important issues in technology and popular culture. On this week's show, Dave wants to stage a podcast intervention, Guy wants nothing to do with Snapcash, and Rene wonders if Taylor Swift would worry about the devaluation of apps. Georgia rolls with it.

We're going to be making some changes to the podcasts we do here at Mobile Nations — Android Central, CrackBerry, Connectedly, iMore, and Windows Phone Central. That'll no doubt excite some people and upset others, but our single, unwavering goal is to make better shows that you'll enjoy even more. We want to respect your time and your interests, we want to stay focused and stay relevant, So, with all of that in mind, here's what's changing!

Apple has updated their Podcasts app to version 2.1 today, adding several enhancements to browsing and playback, along with CarPlay support. Many of the changes are focused on making it easier to find something to listen to.

In addition to today's update to OS X Mavericks, Apple also today released an update to iTunes. Bringing the music/movies/tv/apps/syncing app to version 11.2 is a host of improvements for podcast listeners.

We've already decided on our best apps of 2013 but we still want you to know our most personal ones — the apps we have given primetime spots on our Home screens. Rene's already shared his iPad Air setup so now I'm going to share what's on my iPhone 5s, at least for right now. See, the first page of my Home screen rarely ever stays the same for more than a few weeks. I switch apps based on what I need and like at the time. There are a few staples, however, that might get shuffled but never get bumped. Here they are!

Apple has just today announced 1 billion podcast subscriptions in iTunes alone, so what better opportunity to ask how you do podcasts on your iOS device? Though Apple didn't come up with the idea of a podcast themselves, the use of the word 'pod' in the term meant that it quickly became synonymous with iTunes and the iPod. As the years passed and we found ourselves in the age of iOS and the App Store, there's now a number of different ways to get our podcast fix on the go.

iTunes is perhaps the first place many of us discovered some of our favorite podcasts, and now Apple has announced a pretty impressive 1 billion podcast subscriptions. To celebrate, Apple is currently highlighting some of the best podcasts from across the world, covering a pretty broad range of subject areas. That magic billion covers over 250,000 unique podcasts, 100 different languages and over 8 million individual episodes.

Apple has updated their Podcasts app. A lot. Version 1.2 now includes the ability to create custom stations that automagically update when new episodes become available. You can set your custom stations to start with the newest episode, so you always get the latest and the greatest, or the oldest, so you're less likely to miss a show. Stations get synced via iCloud across all devices, and playlists synced from iTunes on the desktop also now appear in the Podcasts app. Yeah.